A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda

My first impression of A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda was that someone in Bangkok genuinely loved Mega Man X and decided to prove it with real craft rather than just nostalgia. The setup is lean: a corrupted-AI outbreak on a deep-space reprocessing station, two immune combat robots sent in to clean house, and a villain named Zytron who is absolutely not subtle about his plans. The story is light enough to fit on a napkin, but the audiovisual atmosphere does a lot of heavy lifting. The sprite work carries a gritty sci-fi flavor, and the soundtrack is the kind of thumping, melodic techno that you will absolutely keep playing after you close the game. For a small studio's debut, the sonic identity alone earns serious respect. The core loop is tighter than the runtime might suggest. You play as Ares, who comes equipped with a growing arsenal: the Zytron Blaster, a Laser Reactor you pick up mid-game, and the Wall-bypassing Wave Emitter that becomes your best friend in the back half. Each stage hides upgrade chips and drops crafting materials from downed enemies, letting you build health packs, grenade stocks, and weapon tiers between runs. Ares also has a double jump, a roll for dodging, and the Valkyl orbital cannon as a charged screen-clearing limit break. The upgrade pacing is well-considered; you feel the drip of progression in the right places, and going back to earlier stages to grab items locked behind abilities you unlocked later gives the whole thing a light Metroidvania texture without fully committing to the genre. A 99-hit combo system and per-stage letter grades on both Normal and Hard add a score-attack dimension for players who want something to chase after the credits roll. Here is where honest reporting matters: the platforming is the weakest link, and it has always been the weakest link. Jumps feel heavier than you expect, the air dash is finicky under pressure, and the game sprinkles bottomless pits across the exact moments where precision matters most. One vertical-shaft chase sequence with the Leviathan mini-boss is genuinely thrilling in concept and genuinely aggravating in execution, because a single mistimed jump sends you back to the checkpoint. The checkpoint system itself has a documented quirk where credits spent during a boss attempt do not reset on death, which can leave you under-resourced for the retry. None of this is game-breaking, especially since lives are unlimited and checkpoints are placed generously, but players who bounced off older Capcom games due to control feel may not find the friction charming here. The bosses, though, are where A.R.E.S. earns back any goodwill the platforming chips away. They escalate sharply, feature multi-layered background effects that create a convincing parallax depth, and force you to actually use the tools the game has been handing you. Boss fights against machines like Goliath and Carrion are the moments that stick. The whole campaign clocks in around three to four hours on a first run, which is short even for a retro throwback. Replay value lives in hunting all the hidden upgrade chips, chasing SS ranks on Hard, and collecting Datacubes that expand the world's lore in small, satisfying doses. It was originally designed as the first chapter of an episodic series, and that cliffhanger structure means the story ends before it truly opens up, a minor sting that still registers over a decade later.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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